this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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So why are mothers expected to just figure things out on their own? We humans have women living way past fertile age because they were important for children, and suddenly we decided we don't need grandma's help passing along generational knowledge and helping first time mothers. Grandma/Grandpa are supposed to be free and focus on helping the parents so they learn and don't make mistakes because they don't know anything.
And community too. It's so isolated. Makes me sad, and afraid to have children.
Let's be real, the whole "only mom and dad are supposed to FAFO on their own" is an extremely stupid societal expectation. Humans were never meant to live as isolated animals, always in groups
I know right. I don't see why countries promote this kinda individualism and expect people to have children.
It's easier for them to control large scale populations if those populations don't have a strong social structure
Some things you really do just have to learn by experience, but there is no reason to withhold knowledge that can help someone be better or do something easier.
YouTube has converted "sharing knowledge" to "monetization", so no one helps unless they're getting something back for it.
In the Netherlands, "kraamverzorgenden" come by the house of new parents every day for ~the first week to show you the ropes, and just in general to help with chores and/or entertaining brothers and/or sisters.
That sounds like something that would go to the house of new parents and steel their kid
What does "kraamverzorgenden" mean? In my country that's always a woman and is called "grandma" but in a diminutive or loving style or a pet name for grandma. Basically "gammy" or something to that effect.
It roughly means "someone who takes care [of the new family] in a newborn situation".
Same in Slovenia. I assume it's the same in all of EU.
Guess it depends on the Hebamme - there's definitely the possibility to get consultations of this kind before and after birth.
~~People who come by everyday for a week to help out and give advice? For free? If you gave birth at a normal hospital?~~
Edit: i answered to the wrong thread, my bad.
I'll forgive you. This time.
OUR bad!
In my experience, it's not so much everyone needs to figure it out for themselves. It is filtering through invalid opinions and non-applicable information.
It's the same reason it is so hard being a doctor, "Oh, your baby is crying? Here's a few thousand things it could be, and tomorrow, it will probably be a different reason."
Unless they've been using the same sippy cups for decades, I don't think grandma would've helped with this.
While I don't disagree, (personally, I'm not about it but people should be able to plug in to a local community for common advice of mundane things) parents also just...learned things themselves. And sometimes it wasn't correct. I've spoken to my sister-in-law who told me about all the unsolicited advice she's gotten about motherhood. And how much of it was basically superstition, not medical advice.
This is super tangential, but I knew someone who had a miscarriage which caused a mental health crisis. Or perhaps more accurately, the crisis was caused by severe isolation and implicit stigma around her grief. She told me that after the crisis, she was surrounded by people who had experienced miscarriages too. She was baffled because this sure would have been helpful before the mental breakdown.
People are expected to be so strong that ultimately it just weakens us at the community and the individual level
When you’re planning on having kids, or pregnant, your health care providers will recommend you take some parenting classes. There’s ways to learn, don’t let your parents not being there for you stop you. You will also likely get recommended to get a doula and midwife.
It's not the same. For starters, none of it is free. Like every other aspect of capitalism, it disproportionately affects the poor. Also, I don't know about you, but I would never be able to trust a stranger as much as my own family. And the family is also missing out. It's so rewarding to raise a baby. I was involved in raising many of my nieces and nephews, and it was so great. Just interacting with kids is a beautiful thing, and a wonderful stress reliever. (I know not everyone likes babies, but many do.) I know that there's some real threat of perverts, but the fact that babies are pretty much isolated from the society is not great for their growth.
Free where I live.
And why do you think the family still can’t be involved? Your parents likely don’t know everything, and there’s recent discoveries to know about too. Even with family support, you should still do all the above as well. Prepare yourself, don’t expect others to always be there.
Lotta people lose their families
To christianity, fascism, just being personally shitty
Edit: oooooh downvoting. Don't want to be reminded how christianity shatters families?
No, you're downvoted for being incredibly stupid. People with lost families are not part of the discussion about why we don't let family help as much anymore. Because in that case it's very obvious
I'm not advocating against medical/professional help, but you were replying to a comment talking about the erosion of community. Also, this kind of help is not free in the vast majority of the world, afaik. Apart from EU, Japan, China, and maybe a few other small countries, it costs quite a lot.
And I was providing examples where there is communities still available. Just because one door is shut, doesn’t mean they all close. There’s free community programs in lots of places too. Don’t miss all the good to just complain about a few negatives.
Kids are expensive, what a shocker. Did you expect raising kids to be free and easy? Because maybe that’s why more parents need parental classes, to actually properly know how to ready their kids for their own kids.
Not easy, but it should be relatively cheap. If the community is there, it should be cheap. There should be free healthcare, free schooling, and paid leave for parenting. It's still gonna be hard, but not costly to raise a kid. Making it expensive is a product of capitalism.
Maybe I am missing something, but I don't see that in your original reply.
Those are pretty cheap and are available in civilized countries. We have health care, schooling, paid leave for parenting. It’s still expensive to have kids, stuff just costs money. You can garden to lower the costs yourself, but that requires work, which people don’t want to do.
Parental classes are a community, ours even stayed in touch and still talk semi regularly. We used to get together with the dozen kids every 3 months.
What do you think parenting classes is? It’s a community to learn as a group with other parents the hardships of parenting in TODAYS age? A doula provides support, and a midwife provides medical assistance.
You can also go on Facebook and join a mom or parental group, options exist, always have, always will. They’ve modernized in a sense. Go out in your community and find your community center, see what programs they have.
If you think online groups are the same, I don't have anything to say to you. Also, you're blissfully ignoring that not everyone can do that. You mentioned that you have access to free midwives. I hope you realize that it's a privilege that most don't have.
Online groups, in person at your local hall, sometimes things require a little effort on your own and isn’t just handed to you.
Having a parent there for them is also a privilege that most don’t have. If you look, you can always find the negative in everything. There’s options, I’m sorry that you feel the need to gatekeep them.
Classes might help. But the important part is someone with experience doing it for you until you get a hang of it. Someone giving you lession on what to do might give you knowledge but it takes practice, reminders etc. I know you said both is good. I agree with that as things change, some practice in the past might not be good now, but that might also come from every generation resetting the knowledge, if you have generational knowledge passed, and collected and refined with community and science, then the things that work well will stick out longer.
Also, no paternity leave in many places, and short maternity leave (looking at US with zero federally required maternity leave), means people take those for recovery and do not have as much free time before they have the baby.
I mean.. most of the world has parental leave, it’s literally the US and a few other places with nothing. If they offer maternity, most dual with paternity in some way.
So what do mothers do in the US? Do they take leave, unpaid; do they get fired or leave their jobs; do they get a nanny/childcare and show up for work after giving birth like it was just a cold? (Or maybe some are just stay at home moms)
As much as I love my independence, I can't help but look at society and think that things have gone very wrong at some point.
Yeah. Independence is nice and all, specially because of current advances in technology that makes it possible. But the same technology have made it possible to goto the extreme that we were not prepared for.
My wife's parents died 5 years ago in the same year when our first child was 3. I'm not sure how to describe my parents. I have nothing against them. We get along great. They do help, but they are not actively there much, either if that makes sense. Talk on the phone and see each other once a month for family dinner. They will help in an instant if I call them (definitely have a few times) and will watch our children when we need to do something. After that? That's about it. They were mostly hands off with me as well, and so it's just who they were. I enjoyed it and loved the freedom. I don't disagree with the logic either. They did their time and just retired. They spent there life mostly taking care of me, so they deserve some much needed freedom as well to do all the things they never could partially because of me. Some may say it's not enough, but I don't feel that way, and I also hope to enjoy my later years just like them. You give up a lot having kids, you also have a life to live as well at some point.